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Understanding Student Learning Behaviours in E-Learning: Insights from STEM and Social Science Modules

Lai, Hoang Le, Crane, Martin orcid logoORCID: 0000-0001-7598-3126 and Mai, Tai Tan orcid logoORCID: 0000-0001-6657-0872 (2025) Understanding Student Learning Behaviours in E-Learning: Insights from STEM and Social Science Modules. In: 11th International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd’25), 17–20 June 2025, Valencia, Spain.

Abstract
The concept of E-learning has gained popularity among universities and students in recent years as E-learning education platforms can record student learning behaviours in its many forms to recognise and analyse student learning styles. However, it is known that the challenges this brings in monitoring student engagement with course material can be considerable and variable between STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) and Social Sciences courses. This paper applies a graph-based community detection method that integrates the cumulative actions of a student with the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), through a preprocessing technique, facilitating deeper analysis of student performance using the OULAD dataset1. Our findings reveal that this method is trustworthy, and we show that it outperforms traditional classification and clustering methods and achieves superior accuracy in evaluating and predicting academic outcomes—encompassing both formative assignments and terminal assessments. Moreover, this method uncovers variations in learning styles among students in STEM and Social Sciences, indicating commonalities and diversity of the learning approach for the different types of classes, in the same E-learning system.
Metadata
Item Type:Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Event Type:Conference
Refereed:Yes
Uncontrolled Keywords:Learning analytics; E-learning strategies and methodologies; STEM and social sciences; community detection.
Subjects:Computer Science > Artificial intelligence
Physical Sciences > Statistical physics
Social Sciences > Educational technology
DCU Faculties and Centres:DCU Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Engineering and Computing > School of Computing
Research Institutes and Centres > ADAPT
Published in: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd’25). .
Official URL:https://ocs.editorial.upv.es/index.php/HEAD/HEAd25...
Copyright Information:Authors
Funders:Taighde Éireann-Research Ireland under Grant No. 18/CRT/6223., Science Foundation Ireland under Grant Agreement No. 13/RC/2106_P2 at the ADAPT SFI Research Centre at DCU (MC & MB)
ID Code:31447
Deposited On:22 Aug 2025 14:30 by Martin Crane . Last Modified 22 Aug 2025 14:30
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